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I have never owned a printer. When my daughter got old enough to ask why don't we have a printer I said: Whenever you want to print, go to the library and I'll

I have never owned a printer. When my daughter got old enough to ask why don't we have a printer I said: Whenever you want to print, go to the library and I'll give you the money for printing, there is no limit. For some reason the whole family's printing budget has never exceeded 5 Euros per year in the last 20 years. Distance to the library cannot be the reason, it is 1 minute from school. I worked in a paperless company for many years, where the printer was locked to print only contracts and similar documents. While printing is overrated, of course the library printer needs a driver, too. And preferably open source in true Stallman spirit (I'm not a big Stallman fan, but wasn't it so that the whole Free Software movement started because of a closed source printer driver?). But as a domain of little general importance, I am not surprised about the lack of a thriving community.

pantulis 6y ago
My last printer was from 2 decades ago and was only used to print documents. I kind of miss reading source code written by others on dot-matrix long sheets, you can reason around existing code in a different way than navigating through a text editor or IDE. Still not indispensable, though.
- rudasn 6y ago
  Haha I thought I was the only one. When I started being interested in coding, I remember printing the code of some mIRC scripts, and later on printing, html/css files. Everything I would learn was because it was in the source of some other program,and finding something I never seen before was a thrill. Fun times!
- usr1106 6y ago
  Yes, being able to scribble on a source code listing has its advantages in the case of truly obfuscated code. I have done it once in the last 15 years or so, only 2 years ago. Imagine the faces in the office when I worked with that source code listing in front of me :)
- zmix 6y ago
  Absolutely! No better way to consume other's code than going through it on a printout! This was the very reason I looked out for a modern dot-matrix printer, last year, only to find, that they have gotten pretty expensive (at least when compared to the InkJets and Lasers and in color, you also want more than 80 columns, etc.). Also, what I did not find was a printer utility, that would print as many pages as still readable onto the paper, with a special emphasis on source code (hilite, etc.) I did not purchase, however, since it is not so often, that I have to go through somebody else's full source-code.
  - greggman3 6y ago
    no thanks. I'll take one click to find a reference over paper any day.
    - pantulis 6y ago
      It's not about finding references, it's about the general structure of the code and annotations on the printout. Granted, I guess this is a preference of people who cut their teeth in another era of 80x25 displays before modern editors so to each their own.
      - zmix 6y ago
        > it's about the general structure of the code and annotations on the printout. This! It's like "wading" through the code, being able to jump forth and back and setting remarks.
  - abecedarius 6y ago
    Re: utility, how about enscript? E.g. enscript -E -2rj *.c
    - zmix 6y ago
      Cool, thanks!
- znpy 6y ago
  I used to print some very long shell scripts at my previous employer when I was newly hired. I sat there most of a morning with a rubber, a mechanical pencil and a highlighter and worked my way through the code. It felt very good to have made sense of the whole thing to a reasonable level of detail. I highlighted the key tokens, variables and function names and took notes on the side of the pages (sometimes in the back too). It felt very very good. Some of my colleagues where true masters of shellscript, some scripts were remarkable for what they achieved, along with both error checking and error recovery. I've learnt a lot that morning just by looking up commands and syntax I didn't know at the time.
- teddyh 6y ago
  “Where’s your chain printer?” — Sid (http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001002 http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001002)
simonh 6y ago
A significant use of our printer is to print documents to sign, so we can scan the signed copy and email it to a solicitor or bank. Crazy.
- toyg 6y ago
  MacOS has a "signature" option in Preview for that kind of work.
  - minot 6y ago
    To add to that, At least on fedora Linux and likely everywhere else Xournal can open PDF files and you can type free form text or even scribble from within the app. I use a pen because my Lenovo Flex 14 came with one but I imagine you could use a mouse pointer as well.
- pezezin 6y ago
  Replace "sign, scan and email it" with "hanko and fax it" and you are describing most of Japan.
- usr1106 6y ago
  In our company we copy-paste pngs containing signatures into documents. Crazy, too. We also use cryptographic signatures for engineering processes, but most recipients prefer the bitmaps resulting from the png...
- dkarp 6y ago
  I worked somewhere where documents were printed, then signed by one of these https://axidraw.com/ https://axidraw.com/ using the client's signature (with their permission) to be posted to a pension provider who required wet signatures.
  - encom 6y ago
    Comic Sans in their website title. That's a bold move.
  - 6y ago
ezconnect 6y ago
In Japan they still use fax machines.
- usr1106 6y ago
  I guess in Germany, too. (Haven't followed the development in the last couple of years.)
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  In the US, most medical organizations still use faxes. I hate it. If I need to send something to my insurance company, I have to print it out, and go to the UPS Store (and faxing is not cheap). Otherwise, I hardly ever use my printer.
  - minot 6y ago
    I remember seeing an HN comment from someone who runs an online fax thing. I wish I had saved the comment when I saw it. Basically you can just fax stuff from your computer for a small fee.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      The problem is medical related stuff can be quite sensitive and a rando fax internet service could easily be looking at the images you fax and saving the interesting ones.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
        That’s why I don’t do that. In any case, it’s infrequent enough, that it isn’t an issue.
    - Brian_K_White 6y ago
      I used to do that for my own company just for our own customers to use via our software. It was just a single T1 line in a data center with a linux box with a Dialogic T1 card installed, running HylaFax+. This got us 24 high speed fax lines on an internet connected server, and all the application servers sent jobs to it via the regular hylafax+ client (which is like a slightly customized ftp) The users didn't use the fax lines directly to send arbitrary files or prints from their desktops, they just used our software which had the option to fax things it generated. For some years there were several thousand end users and back end automated processes generating tons of faxes 24/7 and it hardly ever scratched the surface of that T1, because it often sent the faxes faster than the traditional 9600. Many times the receiving machine could receive at 14.4, and sometimes even at 19.2 or 33.6, and the server queing up the jobs and using all 24 lines could chew through a lot fast, so even when there was a lot of jobs, they didn't pole up much. That wasn't a generic service but an integrated one, but it's only a small step from there to having a generic email-to-fax gateway/service, or a web front end, or even a virtual printer driver that faxes instead. I used to use a generic service like that for a while also. Not one I made, someone else's service. Unity Fax, later renamed to fax.com. It worked like I just said, you could send and receive by email, or through their web site. They gave you your own phone number that anyone sending a fax to that number was sent to your email (or your inbox on the web site). There are many such services just like that.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
It seems to me that a lot of people print at work/school whenever they need to, rather than own a printer. At least that's the most common around me. Employers generally don't mind as long as it's only a few pages sometimes.
onetimertwo 6y ago
I once bought a scanner/printer combination for my home office. Not having to go to the print shop for every letter saves so much time, 5 euro per month is nothing compared to that.
greggman3 6y ago
I'm with you. I wish CUPS would not be installed by default. I'm curious if most people print in 2020. I don't either. In Japan you can print via USB stick, sd-card, wifi, cloud, etc at pretty much every convenience store and there's usually one close by. where I live there is one 1 minute way, another 2 minutes, another 2.5 minutes, another 4 minutes, and probably 10 more within 10 minutes. I know that's less common in other places but I did use the printer at a library in SF so I know they have (had?) those services too In any case I uninstall CUPS when I install a new installation of linux because, at least in the past, I'd see tons of files updated all the time every update all related to cups, something I wasn't using at all.
- ratww 6y ago
  > In Japan you can print via USB stick, sd-card, wifi, cloud Yep. Even if you need to own a printer, lots of modern printers for office or home also offer those options. For 99% of the cases it's just as good as printing from the computer. This is how it should be, IMO. CUPS is ok, but I would rather never have to install any software related to HP, Epson or Canon on my machine, let alone a driver.
- andi999 6y ago
  In Japan I would trust that system as well, here I am too worried that people syphon off the interesting confidental stuff off.
- jraph 6y ago
  > I wish CUPS would not be installed by default I don't. CUPS does not harm (it's lightweight and quiet), and I don't want to have to install it or configure it if I ever need to use a printer. Drivers should be installed automatically too, so I don't have to think about it. I install whatever mainstream distro, connect to whatever printer there is at the place I am with my laptop and it should just work. People have other things to do than (finding out how to) configure a printer and install packages for that. Distros cannot assume people will know in advance what printer they will need to use with a laptop. For a desktop computer, it's slightly different, but still, common things just need to work out of the box, life is too short for fiddling for most people (I like fiddling though, but only when I choose to do it). On less mainstream / more KISS distros, it would be okay (better) not to install CUPS by default though.
chaostheory 6y ago
Owning a laser printer instead of an inkjet changes the economics of home printing drastically. Also the time savings of not having to physically go to the library to print is huge.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  It mostly changed the economics of my frustration. I’ve never owned an inkjet printer that didn’t infuriate me at least every other print. The laserjet I’ve owned for 4ish years now has yet to infuriate me.
  - Enginerrrd 6y ago
    Yeah laser is overwhelmingly the way to go. The only problem Ive encounteres is that the costs for wide format go through the roof. I need to print 11x17's regularly but infrequently. The solution i figured out was to get a good consumer all-in-one laser for normal size paper, and then a wideformat inkjet. I hate havung two printers, but the total cost is like $600 instead of $2500+.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I have not one but two inkjet printers at home. One's an all-in-one, the other is a large format photo printer. It's been so long since I've used either that the ink is probably dried up. On the other hand, I have a cheap laser printer and it just works. I don't print a lot. I've gotten out of the habit of printing and filing most things and just keep a PDF. But there's still a bunch of random stuff: recipes, trail maps, various things I do need to send as physical copies, etc. I don't need to print it all and could take 30 minutes to print the things I do need at Staples or wherever, but I have a home office and it's a lot easier to just print out a few pages every now and then.
exceptione 6y ago
Printing is not overrated. I like paper, its reads that much easier. These days all in one laser printers are cheap, of good quality and they print for low €/sheet. Personally I have great experiences with Brother on Linux. Brother has well-maintained Linux drivers, recommended.
- jbob2000 6y ago
  You’re at a disadvantage today if you prefer reading on paper, it’s too slow. I’ve tried to go back to paper and I can’t. The information density is low and it’s too hard to maneuver paper quick enough to make up for that. Computers create a “Mary Poppins bag” of information that would take huge desks and rooms to match.
- kn0where 6y ago
  Using CUPS on my Linux machines has always been an exercise in frustration. Installing the proprietary brother drivers using their shell script always just works. I wish they had drivers for ARM though so I could use a raspberry pi for sharing the printer instead of my Intel server.
Thorentis 6y ago
Sheet music is the one area I haven't found a good replacement for in terms of printing. All contracts and important docs I do in PDF or DocuSign or some such. But there is just no good replacement for printed sheet music.
- adav 6y ago
  I’m not a classically trained musician but have you tried an iPad? I use mine for guitar tabs and have found it way better than paper songbooks.
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    No big enough I find. A4 sheet music is just what I'm used to. Being able to write extra notation in (finger markings for piano or practice marks) with a pencil is just so easy. Also being able to have two sheets side by side. On an iPad you're limited to one. Sure, you could buy two, but then what if your score is 4 pages long? You have to either do split PDFs or swipe multiple times on the other one or something. Edit: I'm sure an iPad pro might be good size and resolution wise but I couldn't justify the cost just for sheet music. Plus the multi page issue.
dspillett 6y ago
The main use for my printer is maps for trail running. A custom map produced using OSMaps, some copy+paste magic, with some added notes (navigation hints, checkpoint cut-offs & other pacing notes, emergency numbers), printed on a couple of A4 or A5 sheets of "indestructible" paper, is much more convenient than carrying the full map of the area, or two maps if your route falls over a boundary. Yes, most of us use GPS watches and have detailed maps on our phones too, but tech can & will fail and when it does while you are a little off course you'll be glad you have the paper map (and, of course, the ability to read it). There is no need for everyone to have one though: I'm happy to print copies of my maps for others, I know a few people who don't have a printer of their own (they tend to use one at work if needed, or like your suggestion a local library). I also like printing some things to read and scribble notes on away from the screen. e-ink implementations of this sort of thing are either expensive, so I've not tried them, or smaller than I'd like, or don't work well (big, inexpensive, works well, pick at most two).
- happysadpanda2 6y ago
  What is this "indestructible" paper? (Or was it rather that a phone is anything but in comparison?)
  - gilrain 6y ago
    Check out Rite in the Rain, for example. It's impressive stuff; you can write ink on paper while scuba diving, even. https://www.riteintherain.com https://www.riteintherain.com
  - secstate 6y ago
    I think the quotes are meant to suggest that while paper is not really indestructible, it's failure mode in poor weather is much more graceful than an electronic device. Put the paper in a plastic bag and I know from experience that it will out last your touchscreen device in a down pour in the middle of the woods :) Plus you've eliminated battery anxiety when the last thing you need is more things to be anxious about.
    - 6y ago
brbsix 6y ago
There are a number of occasions where I need to print copies of things that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing on a public printer (bank records, tax returns, 2-factor backup codes, paper copies of private keys for crypto wallets, gpg).
- lukaszkups 6y ago
  100% this. This is the main reason why having a printer is a must-have to me.
- KMnO4 6y ago
  I found an interesting service provided by HP called "Instant Ink" [0]. You pay a subscription and get a fixed number of pages per month. Once the printer is low on ink, they'll automatically send you a new cartridge. What makes it interesting is that there is a 100% free tier that offers 15 pages per month: perfect for infrequent use. 0: https://instantink.hpconnected.com/ https://instantink.hpconnected.com/
  - ljoshua 6y ago
    I've been using Instant Ink for a couple years now and quite like it. No more late night runs to the store hoping they have the one random cartridge I need. And I have only once run through ink so fast that I found myself without a waiting cartridge that had been previously shipped. We do a lot of printing in the home right now with virtual schooling for my youngers. Watching them try to complete math assignments (this is early elementary, mind you) on a tablet interface is a frustrating experience, and in my opinion hinders their ability to actually learn the relevant skills. Printing the assignments out on paper and having them use a pencil is both faster and gets them into a learning mode better.
  - zmix 6y ago
    Thanks a lot! I didn't know this existed! And luckily, not just in the US. Sadly, they don't offer something like this for Lasers, as it seems.
- usr1106 6y ago
bayindirh 6y ago
I still find reading a long paper (the academic kind) in printed format is much more superior to any electronic screen in any form factor including e-ink displays. Using pen on paper is much more natural, tactile and much more efficient in terms of concentration and uninterrupted work for me. YMMV, of course.
- Fredej 6y ago
  I agree. I've been tempted by the Remarkable tablet though.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Might still not be as effective as having multiple pages of notes in front of you at once. Though I did order one.
    - bayindirh 6y ago
      Being able to quickly flip and spread pages on a desk is always faster than a screen but, remarkable of course has its benefits for some scenarios. While I love to read and write on paper, I don't buy any paper books anymore.
- fouric 6y ago
  You might find that the ReMarkable (2) tablet provides a feel that is similar enough to paper that it works for you. On the other hand, the second version costs $500, a luxury purchase for many people.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    Remarkable is nice, e-ink is also nice. I live glued to my Kobo e-book reader and love reading novels and non-fiction from 300 dpi e-ink screen. However, e-ink lacks speed and color. The papers I read use a lot of color in diagrams and waiting for e-ink screen to refresh, reduce its color palette to accelerate and re-refresh to return its previous mode is both distracting and flow breaking for me. Also, I use a lot of colors for different things on paper. Different highlighters for different stuff (yellow for "further research", blue to "remember this part"), etc. iPad with Good reader is almost as good as my workflow but this thing is heavy, backlit screens are eye-straining... Since PDFs are not made for screens it's also distracting to zoom and scroll too. So we need another format (maybe ePub) for academic papers to read them effectively on digital devices.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I've been working on printer related technology for my whole career and I almost never print anything. Ask any IT person the technology they least like dealing with and they will all say printers.
speeder 6y ago
I don't own a printer myself But my small-ish company owns several, and in my country it is basically essential... A major reason to have a printer here, is that if you do ANY, and I mean ANY business, you need to file a electronic form with the government, and print a physical copy. The reason for this, is that we have a transportation tax, and if the road police stops you, you must have the printed document on you to show to the cop the goods you are transporting had the tax paid. Weirdly a lot of people DO NOT know that it is the road police that is the intended readers of the document, so the information that is relevant to them is often wrong (people file price, tax, etc... correctly, and then put random values in volume amount, weight, size, registration plate of vehicle, etc...) then they get surprised the police seizes their stuff. And many just don't print it, and assume sending to the digital document is enough. (it is not, a cop in the middle of nowhere might not have internet to check on the official servers the document, and thus he will want the paper copy that he can read with a flashlight)
- Vrondi 6y ago
  Yes, people don't realize that truckers (who are transporting goods and equipment) still use paper a lot for official permits and info. In my country, they were among the earliest demographics to adopt pagers, then mobile phones, but at the same time, they all have a steel clipboard that opens to a storage compartment for a stack of paper permits (one or more for every state in the USA you are driving across), log sheets (for state and federal government, job sites, etc). And while you must file things with some government offices electronically, you better have the paper copy for the cops and Department of Transportation inspectors in various states as well as for mandatory road-scale-houses on interstate highways.
smoyer 6y ago
Moyer's Law - when you can reliably print any document on any printer there will be no more computer science problems left to solve. Corollary to Moyer's Law - The timestamps will still be wrong.
analog31 6y ago
The big use of a printer in my household is sheet music. Though some musicians have started using big tablets (with a pedal for turning pages), I expect widespread adoption to be slow and painful. Musicians are not always particularly tech savvy, and even when they are, they may have little patience for futzing with technology. They expect things to just work, and to not detract from playing and working on the music. Very well organized musicians and larger ensembles with a dedicated librarian have switched to the tablets, but when you're a bandleader trying to herd 19 cats who were all hired at the last minute, you don't want to add an hour to the time for performing or rehearsing to get them all up and running with disparate platforms, file formats, power cables, and so forth. You hand out folders full of "charts" and off you go.

pantulis 6y ago

My last printer was from 2 decades ago and was only used to print documents. I kind of miss reading source code written by others on dot-matrix long sheets, you can reason around existing code in a different way than navigating through a text editor or IDE. Still not indispensable, though.

rudasn 6y ago
Haha I thought I was the only one. When I started being interested in coding, I remember printing the code of some mIRC scripts, and later on printing, html/css files. Everything I would learn was because it was in the source of some other program,and finding something I never seen before was a thrill. Fun times!
usr1106 6y ago
Yes, being able to scribble on a source code listing has its advantages in the case of truly obfuscated code. I have done it once in the last 15 years or so, only 2 years ago. Imagine the faces in the office when I worked with that source code listing in front of me :)
zmix 6y ago
Absolutely! No better way to consume other's code than going through it on a printout! This was the very reason I looked out for a modern dot-matrix printer, last year, only to find, that they have gotten pretty expensive (at least when compared to the InkJets and Lasers and in color, you also want more than 80 columns, etc.). Also, what I did not find was a printer utility, that would print as many pages as still readable onto the paper, with a special emphasis on source code (hilite, etc.) I did not purchase, however, since it is not so often, that I have to go through somebody else's full source-code.
- greggman3 6y ago
  no thanks. I'll take one click to find a reference over paper any day.
  - pantulis 6y ago
    It's not about finding references, it's about the general structure of the code and annotations on the printout. Granted, I guess this is a preference of people who cut their teeth in another era of 80x25 displays before modern editors so to each their own.
    - zmix 6y ago
      > it's about the general structure of the code and annotations on the printout. This! It's like "wading" through the code, being able to jump forth and back and setting remarks.
- abecedarius 6y ago
  Re: utility, how about enscript? E.g. enscript -E -2rj *.c
  - zmix 6y ago
    Cool, thanks!
znpy 6y ago
I used to print some very long shell scripts at my previous employer when I was newly hired. I sat there most of a morning with a rubber, a mechanical pencil and a highlighter and worked my way through the code. It felt very good to have made sense of the whole thing to a reasonable level of detail. I highlighted the key tokens, variables and function names and took notes on the side of the pages (sometimes in the back too). It felt very very good. Some of my colleagues where true masters of shellscript, some scripts were remarkable for what they achieved, along with both error checking and error recovery. I've learnt a lot that morning just by looking up commands and syntax I didn't know at the time.
teddyh 6y ago
“Where’s your chain printer?” — Sid (http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001002 http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20001002)

simonh 6y ago

A significant use of our printer is to print documents to sign, so we can scan the signed copy and email it to a solicitor or bank. Crazy.

toyg 6y ago
MacOS has a "signature" option in Preview for that kind of work.
- minot 6y ago
  To add to that, At least on fedora Linux and likely everywhere else Xournal can open PDF files and you can type free form text or even scribble from within the app. I use a pen because my Lenovo Flex 14 came with one but I imagine you could use a mouse pointer as well.
pezezin 6y ago
Replace "sign, scan and email it" with "hanko and fax it" and you are describing most of Japan.
usr1106 6y ago
In our company we copy-paste pngs containing signatures into documents. Crazy, too. We also use cryptographic signatures for engineering processes, but most recipients prefer the bitmaps resulting from the png...
dkarp 6y ago
I worked somewhere where documents were printed, then signed by one of these https://axidraw.com/ https://axidraw.com/ using the client's signature (with their permission) to be posted to a pension provider who required wet signatures.
- encom 6y ago
  Comic Sans in their website title. That's a bold move.
- 6y ago

ezconnect 6y ago

In Japan they still use fax machines.

usr1106 6y ago
I guess in Germany, too. (Haven't followed the development in the last couple of years.)
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
In the US, most medical organizations still use faxes. I hate it. If I need to send something to my insurance company, I have to print it out, and go to the UPS Store (and faxing is not cheap). Otherwise, I hardly ever use my printer.
- minot 6y ago
  I remember seeing an HN comment from someone who runs an online fax thing. I wish I had saved the comment when I saw it. Basically you can just fax stuff from your computer for a small fee.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    The problem is medical related stuff can be quite sensitive and a rando fax internet service could easily be looking at the images you fax and saving the interesting ones.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
      That’s why I don’t do that. In any case, it’s infrequent enough, that it isn’t an issue.
  - Brian_K_White 6y ago
    I used to do that for my own company just for our own customers to use via our software. It was just a single T1 line in a data center with a linux box with a Dialogic T1 card installed, running HylaFax+. This got us 24 high speed fax lines on an internet connected server, and all the application servers sent jobs to it via the regular hylafax+ client (which is like a slightly customized ftp) The users didn't use the fax lines directly to send arbitrary files or prints from their desktops, they just used our software which had the option to fax things it generated. For some years there were several thousand end users and back end automated processes generating tons of faxes 24/7 and it hardly ever scratched the surface of that T1, because it often sent the faxes faster than the traditional 9600. Many times the receiving machine could receive at 14.4, and sometimes even at 19.2 or 33.6, and the server queing up the jobs and using all 24 lines could chew through a lot fast, so even when there was a lot of jobs, they didn't pole up much. That wasn't a generic service but an integrated one, but it's only a small step from there to having a generic email-to-fax gateway/service, or a web front end, or even a virtual printer driver that faxes instead. I used to use a generic service like that for a while also. Not one I made, someone else's service. Unity Fax, later renamed to fax.com. It worked like I just said, you could send and receive by email, or through their web site. They gave you your own phone number that anyone sending a fax to that number was sent to your email (or your inbox on the web site). There are many such services just like that.

benhurmarcel 6y ago

It seems to me that a lot of people print at work/school whenever they need to, rather than own a printer. At least that's the most common around me. Employers generally don't mind as long as it's only a few pages sometimes.

onetimertwo 6y ago

I once bought a scanner/printer combination for my home office. Not having to go to the print shop for every letter saves so much time, 5 euro per month is nothing compared to that.

greggman3 6y ago

I'm with you. I wish CUPS would not be installed by default. I'm curious if most people print in 2020. I don't either. In Japan you can print via USB stick, sd-card, wifi, cloud, etc at pretty much every convenience store and there's usually one close by. where I live there is one 1 minute way, another 2 minutes, another 2.5 minutes, another 4 minutes, and probably 10 more within 10 minutes. I know that's less common in other places but I did use the printer at a library in SF so I know they have (had?) those services too In any case I uninstall CUPS when I install a new installation of linux because, at least in the past, I'd see tons of files updated all the time every update all related to cups, something I wasn't using at all.

ratww 6y ago
> In Japan you can print via USB stick, sd-card, wifi, cloud Yep. Even if you need to own a printer, lots of modern printers for office or home also offer those options. For 99% of the cases it's just as good as printing from the computer. This is how it should be, IMO. CUPS is ok, but I would rather never have to install any software related to HP, Epson or Canon on my machine, let alone a driver.
andi999 6y ago
In Japan I would trust that system as well, here I am too worried that people syphon off the interesting confidental stuff off.
jraph 6y ago
> I wish CUPS would not be installed by default I don't. CUPS does not harm (it's lightweight and quiet), and I don't want to have to install it or configure it if I ever need to use a printer. Drivers should be installed automatically too, so I don't have to think about it. I install whatever mainstream distro, connect to whatever printer there is at the place I am with my laptop and it should just work. People have other things to do than (finding out how to) configure a printer and install packages for that. Distros cannot assume people will know in advance what printer they will need to use with a laptop. For a desktop computer, it's slightly different, but still, common things just need to work out of the box, life is too short for fiddling for most people (I like fiddling though, but only when I choose to do it). On less mainstream / more KISS distros, it would be okay (better) not to install CUPS by default though.

chaostheory 6y ago

Owning a laser printer instead of an inkjet changes the economics of home printing drastically. Also the time savings of not having to physically go to the library to print is huge.

Aeolun 6y ago
It mostly changed the economics of my frustration. I’ve never owned an inkjet printer that didn’t infuriate me at least every other print. The laserjet I’ve owned for 4ish years now has yet to infuriate me.
- Enginerrrd 6y ago
  Yeah laser is overwhelmingly the way to go. The only problem Ive encounteres is that the costs for wide format go through the roof. I need to print 11x17's regularly but infrequently. The solution i figured out was to get a good consumer all-in-one laser for normal size paper, and then a wideformat inkjet. I hate havung two printers, but the total cost is like $600 instead of $2500+.
ghaff 6y ago
I have not one but two inkjet printers at home. One's an all-in-one, the other is a large format photo printer. It's been so long since I've used either that the ink is probably dried up. On the other hand, I have a cheap laser printer and it just works. I don't print a lot. I've gotten out of the habit of printing and filing most things and just keep a PDF. But there's still a bunch of random stuff: recipes, trail maps, various things I do need to send as physical copies, etc. I don't need to print it all and could take 30 minutes to print the things I do need at Staples or wherever, but I have a home office and it's a lot easier to just print out a few pages every now and then.

exceptione 6y ago

Printing is not overrated. I like paper, its reads that much easier. These days all in one laser printers are cheap, of good quality and they print for low €/sheet. Personally I have great experiences with Brother on Linux. Brother has well-maintained Linux drivers, recommended.

jbob2000 6y ago
You’re at a disadvantage today if you prefer reading on paper, it’s too slow. I’ve tried to go back to paper and I can’t. The information density is low and it’s too hard to maneuver paper quick enough to make up for that. Computers create a “Mary Poppins bag” of information that would take huge desks and rooms to match.
kn0where 6y ago
Using CUPS on my Linux machines has always been an exercise in frustration. Installing the proprietary brother drivers using their shell script always just works. I wish they had drivers for ARM though so I could use a raspberry pi for sharing the printer instead of my Intel server.

Thorentis 6y ago

Sheet music is the one area I haven't found a good replacement for in terms of printing. All contracts and important docs I do in PDF or DocuSign or some such. But there is just no good replacement for printed sheet music.

adav 6y ago
I’m not a classically trained musician but have you tried an iPad? I use mine for guitar tabs and have found it way better than paper songbooks.
- Thorentis 6y ago
  No big enough I find. A4 sheet music is just what I'm used to. Being able to write extra notation in (finger markings for piano or practice marks) with a pencil is just so easy. Also being able to have two sheets side by side. On an iPad you're limited to one. Sure, you could buy two, but then what if your score is 4 pages long? You have to either do split PDFs or swipe multiple times on the other one or something. Edit: I'm sure an iPad pro might be good size and resolution wise but I couldn't justify the cost just for sheet music. Plus the multi page issue.

dspillett 6y ago

The main use for my printer is maps for trail running. A custom map produced using OSMaps, some copy+paste magic, with some added notes (navigation hints, checkpoint cut-offs & other pacing notes, emergency numbers), printed on a couple of A4 or A5 sheets of "indestructible" paper, is much more convenient than carrying the full map of the area, or two maps if your route falls over a boundary. Yes, most of us use GPS watches and have detailed maps on our phones too, but tech can & will fail and when it does while you are a little off course you'll be glad you have the paper map (and, of course, the ability to read it). There is no need for everyone to have one though: I'm happy to print copies of my maps for others, I know a few people who don't have a printer of their own (they tend to use one at work if needed, or like your suggestion a local library). I also like printing some things to read and scribble notes on away from the screen. e-ink implementations of this sort of thing are either expensive, so I've not tried them, or smaller than I'd like, or don't work well (big, inexpensive, works well, pick at most two).

happysadpanda2 6y ago
What is this "indestructible" paper? (Or was it rather that a phone is anything but in comparison?)
- gilrain 6y ago
  Check out Rite in the Rain, for example. It's impressive stuff; you can write ink on paper while scuba diving, even. https://www.riteintherain.com https://www.riteintherain.com
- secstate 6y ago
  I think the quotes are meant to suggest that while paper is not really indestructible, it's failure mode in poor weather is much more graceful than an electronic device. Put the paper in a plastic bag and I know from experience that it will out last your touchscreen device in a down pour in the middle of the woods :) Plus you've eliminated battery anxiety when the last thing you need is more things to be anxious about.
  - 6y ago

brbsix 6y ago

There are a number of occasions where I need to print copies of things that I wouldn't feel comfortable doing on a public printer (bank records, tax returns, 2-factor backup codes, paper copies of private keys for crypto wallets, gpg).

lukaszkups 6y ago
100% this. This is the main reason why having a printer is a must-have to me.
KMnO4 6y ago
I found an interesting service provided by HP called "Instant Ink" [0]. You pay a subscription and get a fixed number of pages per month. Once the printer is low on ink, they'll automatically send you a new cartridge. What makes it interesting is that there is a 100% free tier that offers 15 pages per month: perfect for infrequent use. 0: https://instantink.hpconnected.com/ https://instantink.hpconnected.com/
- ljoshua 6y ago
  I've been using Instant Ink for a couple years now and quite like it. No more late night runs to the store hoping they have the one random cartridge I need. And I have only once run through ink so fast that I found myself without a waiting cartridge that had been previously shipped. We do a lot of printing in the home right now with virtual schooling for my youngers. Watching them try to complete math assignments (this is early elementary, mind you) on a tablet interface is a frustrating experience, and in my opinion hinders their ability to actually learn the relevant skills. Printing the assignments out on paper and having them use a pencil is both faster and gets them into a learning mode better.
- zmix 6y ago
  Thanks a lot! I didn't know this existed! And luckily, not just in the US. Sadly, they don't offer something like this for Lasers, as it seems.
usr1106 6y ago

bayindirh 6y ago

I still find reading a long paper (the academic kind) in printed format is much more superior to any electronic screen in any form factor including e-ink displays. Using pen on paper is much more natural, tactile and much more efficient in terms of concentration and uninterrupted work for me. YMMV, of course.

Fredej 6y ago
I agree. I've been tempted by the Remarkable tablet though.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Might still not be as effective as having multiple pages of notes in front of you at once. Though I did order one.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    Being able to quickly flip and spread pages on a desk is always faster than a screen but, remarkable of course has its benefits for some scenarios. While I love to read and write on paper, I don't buy any paper books anymore.
fouric 6y ago
You might find that the ReMarkable (2) tablet provides a feel that is similar enough to paper that it works for you. On the other hand, the second version costs $500, a luxury purchase for many people.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  Remarkable is nice, e-ink is also nice. I live glued to my Kobo e-book reader and love reading novels and non-fiction from 300 dpi e-ink screen. However, e-ink lacks speed and color. The papers I read use a lot of color in diagrams and waiting for e-ink screen to refresh, reduce its color palette to accelerate and re-refresh to return its previous mode is both distracting and flow breaking for me. Also, I use a lot of colors for different things on paper. Different highlighters for different stuff (yellow for "further research", blue to "remember this part"), etc. iPad with Good reader is almost as good as my workflow but this thing is heavy, backlit screens are eye-straining... Since PDFs are not made for screens it's also distracting to zoom and scroll too. So we need another format (maybe ePub) for academic papers to read them effectively on digital devices.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I've been working on printer related technology for my whole career and I almost never print anything. Ask any IT person the technology they least like dealing with and they will all say printers.

speeder 6y ago

I don't own a printer myself But my small-ish company owns several, and in my country it is basically essential... A major reason to have a printer here, is that if you do ANY, and I mean ANY business, you need to file a electronic form with the government, and print a physical copy. The reason for this, is that we have a transportation tax, and if the road police stops you, you must have the printed document on you to show to the cop the goods you are transporting had the tax paid. Weirdly a lot of people DO NOT know that it is the road police that is the intended readers of the document, so the information that is relevant to them is often wrong (people file price, tax, etc... correctly, and then put random values in volume amount, weight, size, registration plate of vehicle, etc...) then they get surprised the police seizes their stuff. And many just don't print it, and assume sending to the digital document is enough. (it is not, a cop in the middle of nowhere might not have internet to check on the official servers the document, and thus he will want the paper copy that he can read with a flashlight)

Vrondi 6y ago
Yes, people don't realize that truckers (who are transporting goods and equipment) still use paper a lot for official permits and info. In my country, they were among the earliest demographics to adopt pagers, then mobile phones, but at the same time, they all have a steel clipboard that opens to a storage compartment for a stack of paper permits (one or more for every state in the USA you are driving across), log sheets (for state and federal government, job sites, etc). And while you must file things with some government offices electronically, you better have the paper copy for the cops and Department of Transportation inspectors in various states as well as for mandatory road-scale-houses on interstate highways.

smoyer 6y ago

Moyer's Law - when you can reliably print any document on any printer there will be no more computer science problems left to solve. Corollary to Moyer's Law - The timestamps will still be wrong.

analog31 6y ago

The big use of a printer in my household is sheet music. Though some musicians have started using big tablets (with a pedal for turning pages), I expect widespread adoption to be slow and painful. Musicians are not always particularly tech savvy, and even when they are, they may have little patience for futzing with technology. They expect things to just work, and to not detract from playing and working on the music. Very well organized musicians and larger ensembles with a dedicated librarian have switched to the tablets, but when you're a bandleader trying to herd 19 cats who were all hired at the last minute, you don't want to add an hour to the time for performing or rehearsing to get them all up and running with disparate platforms, file formats, power cables, and so forth. You hand out folders full of "charts" and off you go.